CIA Pressuring Agents With Knowledge Of Benghazi To Keep Silent

Obama Wins Approval To Arm Al Qaeda in Syria

he House Intelligence Committee has just approved the Obama administration’s plan to arm the Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebel forces, despite their “strong reservations.” The committee’s decision was almost unanimous with just one member, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D) of California, dissenting on the grounds “that the modest chance for success of these plans does not warrant the risk of becoming entangled in yet another civil war.”

Indeed, taking the step to arm the rebels is an incredibly risky move. The committee’s members no doubt seek to mitigate political backlash in their home districts by voicing their “strong reservations” — particularly because 54% of the American electorate, mostly Republicans and independents, disapprove of arming the rebels.

In addition to the cost and the high potential of instigating a proxy war in Syria, no doubt the most prevalent dilemma on lawmakers’ minds is that although the U.S. will seek to carefully control the weapons to ensure that only moderates receive them, it is impossible to regulate a war zone. The weapons in question could easily make their way into the hands of the Jabhat Al-Nusra or other Al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamists.

Additionally, the Obama administration’s plan is a convenient way of bypassing Congressional approval, the uncooperative UN Security Council, and other international legal restrictions on providing military aid to overthrow other governments. Instead of coming from the military, which would be subject to more conventional, transparent channels, arms shipments will arrive in Syria as part of a CIA covert operation. This obscures the more minute details of the plan from the American public, including the price tag.

Syria CIVIL WAR – OBAMA signed SECRET order allowing CIA to HELP REBELS

Glenn Beck » Top 20 Benghazi Lies

CNN’s Jake Tapper broadcast a report on Thursday in which the network’s reporters alleged that the Central Intelligence Agency is pressuring agents who were on the ground on the night of the deadly 2012 attack on an American consulate in Benghazi from talking to Congress or the media. The agents in question have been subjected, according to the report, to an inordinate amount of polygraph testing in order to ensure that they are not talking about the Benghazi attacks.

“Sources now tell CNN dozens of CIA agents were on the ground that night,” Tapper revealed about the night of the attack, “and the CIA is going to great lengths to make sure whatever they were doing and what happened that night remains a secret.”

“Since January, some CIA operatives involved in the agency’s missions in Libya have been subjected to frequent, even monthly, polygraph examinations,” CNN reporter Drew Griffin revealed. “The goal of the questioning, according to sources, is to find out if anyone is talking to the media or Congress.”

“It’s being described as pure intimidation with the threat that any unauthorized CIA employees who leaks information could face the end of his or her career,” Griffin continued.

RELATED: CNN Interviews Accused Benghazi Attack Perpetrator: Not In Hiding, Claims FBI Not Looking For Him

In one communication obtained by CNN, a CIA source revealed that the threats are having the effect of preventing agents with knowledge of what happened on the night of the attack from coming forward.

“You don’t jeopardize yourself, you jeopardize your family as well,” an anonymous source wrote. “You have no idea the amount of pressure being brought to bear on anyone with knowledge of this operation,” another source added.

“[A] source tells CNN that 21 Americans were working in the building known as the annex, believed to be run by the agency,” a CNN.com report reads. “In the aftermath of the attack, [Rep. Frank] Wolf (R-VA) said he was contacted by people closely tied with CIA operatives and contractors who wanted to talk. Then suddenly, there was silence.”

The CIA has denied the claims of sources CNN spoke with, and said that they have made all officers who were involved in Libyan operations available to members of Congress for interviews.

Since January, some CIA operatives involved in the agency’s missions in Libya, have been subjected to frequent, even monthly polygraph examinations, according to a source with deep inside knowledge of the agency’s workings.

The goal of the questioning, according to sources, is to find out if anyone is talking to the media or Congress.

It is being described as pure intimidation, with the threat that any unauthorized CIA employee who leaks information could face the end of his or her career.

In exclusive communications obtained by CNN, one insider writes, “You don’t jeopardize yourself, you jeopardize your family as well.”

Another says, “You have no idea the amount of pressure being brought to bear on anyone with knowledge of this operation.”

“Agency employees typically are polygraphed every three to four years. Never more than that,” said former CIA operative and CNN analyst Robert Baer.

In other words, the rate of the kind of polygraphs alleged by sources is rare.

“If somebody is being polygraphed every month, or every two months it’s called an issue polygraph, and that means that the polygraph division suspects something, or they’re looking for something, or they’re on a fishing expedition. But it’s absolutely not routine at all to be polygraphed monthly, or bi-monthly,” said Baer.

CIA spokesman Dean Boyd asserted in a statement that the agency has been open with Congress.

“The CIA has worked closely with its oversight committees to provide them with an extraordinary amount of information related to the attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi,” the statement said.

“CIA employees are always free to speak to Congress if they want,” the statement continued. “The CIA enabled all officers involved in Benghazi the opportunity to meet with Congress. We are not aware of any CIA employee who has experienced retaliation, including any non-routine security procedures, or who has been prevented from sharing a concern with Congress about the Benghazi incident.”

Among the many secrets still yet to be told about the Benghazi mission, is just how many Americans were there the night of the attack.

A source now tells CNN that number was 35, with as many as seven wounded, some seriously.

While it is still not known how many of them were CIA, a source tells CNN that 21 Americans were working in the building known as the annex, believed to be run by the agency.

The lack of information and pressure to silence CIA operatives is disturbing to U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf, whose district includes CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

“I think it is a form of a cover-up, and I think it’s an attempt to push it under the rug, and I think the American people are feeling the same way,” said the Republican.

“We should have the people who were on the scene come in, testify under oath, do it publicly, and lay it out. And there really isn’t any national security issue involved with regards to that,” he said.

Wolf has repeatedly gone to the House floor, asking for a select committee to be set-up, a Watergate-style probe involving several intelligence committee investigators assigned to get to the bottom of the failures that took place in Benghazi, and find out just what the State Department and CIA were doing there.

More than 150 fellow Republican members of Congress have signed his request, and just this week eight Republicans sent a letter to the new head of the FBI, James Comey, asking that he brief Congress within 30 days.

In the aftermath of the attack, Wolf said he was contacted by people closely tied with CIA operatives and contractors who wanted to talk.

Then suddenly, there was silence.

“Initially they were not afraid to come forward. They wanted the opportunity, and they wanted to be subpoenaed, because if you’re subpoenaed, it sort of protects you, you’re forced to come before Congress. Now that’s all changed,” said Wolf.

Lawmakers also want to about know the weapons in Libya, and what happened to them.

Speculation on Capitol Hill has included the possibility the U.S. agencies operating in Benghazi were secretly helping to move surface-to-air missiles out of Libya, through Turkey, and into the hands of Syrian rebels.

It is clear that two U.S. agencies were operating in Benghazi, one was the State Department, and the other was the CIA.

The State Department told CNN in an e-mail that it was only helping the new Libyan government destroy weapons deemed “damaged, aged or too unsafe retain,” and that it was not involved in any transfer of weapons to other countries.

But the State Department also clearly told CNN, they “can’t speak for any other agencies.”

The CIA would not comment on whether it was involved in the transfer of any weapons.

Grinch SA-24s are designed to target front-line aircraft, helicopters, cruise missiles and drones. They can shoot down a plane flying as high as 11,000 feet and can travel 19,000 feet straight out.

Fighters aligned with the National Transitional Council and others swiped armaments from the storage facility, witnesses told Human Rights Watch. The warehouse is located near a base of the Khamis Brigade, a special forces unit in Gadhafi’s military, in the southeastern part of the capital.

The warehouse contains mortars and artillery rounds, but there are empty crates for those items as well. There are also empty boxes for another surface-to-air missile, the SA-7.

Peter Bouckaert, Human Rights Watch emergencies director, told CNN he has seen the same pattern in armories looted elsewhere in Libya, noting that “in every city we arrive, the first thing to disappear are the surface-to-air missiles.”

He said such missiles can fetch many thousands of dollars on the black market.

“We are talking about some 20,000 surface-to-air missiles in all of Libya, and I’ve seen cars packed with them.” he said. “They could turn all of North Africa into a no-fly zone.”

There was no immediate comment from NTC officials.

The lack of security at the weapons site raises concerns about stability in post-Gadhafi Libya and whether the new NTC leadership is doing enough to stop the weapons from getting into the wrong hands.

A NATO official, who asked to not be named because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, said 575 surface-to-air missiles, radar systems and sites or storage facilities were hit by NATO airstrikes and either damaged or destroyed between March 31 and Saturday. He didn’t elaborate on the specifics about the targets.

Gen. Carter Ham, chief of U.S. Africa Command, has said he’s concerned about the proliferation of weapons, most notably the shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles. He said there were about 20,000 in Libya when the international operation began earlier this year and many of them have not been accounted for.

“That’s going to be a concern for some period of time,” he said in April.

Gilles de Kerchove, the European Union counterterrorism coordinator, raised concerns Monday about the possibility that al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, based in North Africa, could gain access to small arms, machine guns and surface-to-air missiles.

Western officials worry that weapons from the storage sites will end up in the hands of militants or adversaries like Iran.

The governments of neighboring Niger and Chad have both said that weapons from Libya are already being smuggled into their countries, and they are destined for al Qaeda. They include detonators and a plastic explosive called Semtex. Chad’s president said they include SA-7 missiles.

An ethnic Tuareg leader in the northern Niger city of Agadez also said many weapons have come across the border. He said he and other Tuareg leaders are anxious about Gadhafi’s Tuareg fighters returning home — with their weapons — and making common cause with al Qaeda cells in the region. Gadhafi’s fighting forces have included mercenaries from other African nations.

The missing weapons also conjure fears of what happened in Iraq, where people grabbed scores of weapons when Saddam Hussein’s regime was overthrown.

Bouckaert said one or two of the missing artillery rounds are “enough to make a car bomb.”

“We should remember what happened in Iraq,” he said, when the “country was turned upside down” by insurgents using such weaponry.

There have been similar concerns in Afghanistan, where the United States provided thousands of Stinger missiles to the Afghan mujahedeen when they were fighting the Soviets in the 1980s. The United States has spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to buy them back, fearful that they would fall into the hands of terrorists.

History

The development of the Igla short-range man-portable air defense system (MANPADS) began in the Kolomna OKB in 1972. Contrary to what is commonly reported, the Igla is not an improved version of the earlier Strela family (Strela-2/SA-7 and Strela-3/SA-14), but an all new project. The main goals were to create a missile with better resistance to countermeasures and wider engagement envelope than the earlier Strela series MANPADS systems.

Technical difficulties in the development quickly made it obvious that the development would take far longer than anticipated however, and in 1978 the program split in two: while the development of the full-capability Igla would continue, a simplified version (Igla-1) with a simpler IR seeker based on that of the earlier Strela-3/SA-14 would be developed to enter service earlier than the full-capability version could be finished.

Igla-1

The 9K310 Igla-1 system and its 9M313 missile were accepted into service in the Soviet army on 11 March 1981. The main differences from the Strela-3 included an optional Identification Friend or Foe system to prevent firing on friendly aircraft, an automatic lead and super elevation to simplify shooting and reduce minimum firing range, a slightly larger rocket, reduced drag and better guidance system extend maximum range and improve performance against fast and maneuverable targets, an improved lethality on target achieved by a combination of delayed impact fuzing, terminal maneuver to hit the fuselage rather than jet nozzle, an additional charge to set off the remaining rocket fuel (if any) on impact, an improved resistance to infrared countermeasures (both decoy flares and ALQ-144 series jamming emitters), and slightly improved seeker sensitivity.

According to the manufacturer, South African tests have shown[citation needed] the Igla’s superiority over the contemporary (1982 service entry) but smaller and lighter American FIM-92A Stinger missile. However, other tests in Croatia did not support[citation needed] any clear superiority, but effectively equal seeker performance and only marginally shorter time of flight and longer range for the Igla.

Igla

The full-capability 9K38 Igla with its 9M39 missile was finally accepted into service in the Soviet Army in 1983. The main improvements over the Igla-1 included much improved resistance against flares and jamming, a more sensitive seeker, expanding forward-hemisphere engagement capability to include straight-approaching fighters (all-aspect capability) under favourable circumstances, a slightly longer range, a higher-impulse, shorter-burning rocket with higher peak velocity (but approximately same time of flight to maximum range), and a propellant that performs as high explosive when detonated by the warhead’s secondary charge on impact.

The naval variant of 9K38 Igla has the NATO reporting name SA-N-10 Grouse.

Operational history

Iraq

The most notable combat use of the SA-16 was during the Gulf War. On January 17, 1991, a Panavia Tornado bomber of the British Royal Air Force was shot down by an Iraqi MANPADS that may have been an SA-16 (or SA-14) after an unsuccessful bombing mission.[3]

In addition, an SA-16 may have shot down an F-16 on February 27. The pilot was captured[4][5]

Rwanda

Private intelligence company Stratfor asserts that SA-16 missiles were used in the 1994 shoot down of a Rwandan government flight, killing the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi and sparking the Rwandan Genocide, which resulted in approximately 800,000 deaths in 100 days.[6] One source claims France may have supplied the missiles from captured Iraqi stocks of the 1991 war.[7]

Cenepa War

During the Cenepa War between Ecuador and Peru, both the Ecuadorian Army and the Peruvian Army (which had 90 functioning firing units) utilized SA-16 missiles against aircraft and helicopters.

Use in plot against Air Force One

On August 12, 2003, as a result of a sting operation arranged as a result of cooperation between the American, British and Russian intelligence agencies, Hemant Lakhani, a British national, was intercepted attempting to bring what he had thought was an older-generation Igla into the USA. He is said to have intended the missile to be used in an attack on Air Force One, the American presidential plane, or on a commercial US airliner, and is understood to have planned to buy 50 more of these weapons.

Igla-S (SA-24)

Libya: Photo evidence of the truck mounted twin version in service with the Libyan Army emerged during the 2011 Libyan civil war starting from March 2011. 482 Igla-S missiles were imported from Russia in 2004. Some of them were unaccounted at the end of the war and they could have ended up in Iranian inventory.[21][22][23] Israeli officials say that Igla-S were looted from Libyan warehouses in 2011 and transported by Iranians through Sudan and turned over to militants in Gaza and Lebanon.[24]

Syria: Photo evidence of SA-24 MANPADS (man-portable) in the possession of Syrian rebels was first reported on November 13, 2012. “As far as I know, this is the first SA-24 Manpads ever photographed outside of state control,” said one expert.[25]